April 10 2007
Is it me or does it seem like there has been an exponential increase and a raft of celebrities hawking their own wine over the course of the last year or two?
I can count 15 celebrities that easily come to mind and no doubt there are many more that that.
Ironically enough, most of these well-known wine pushing folks have undoubtedly had their Q Score, a way to measure the familiarity and appeal of a brand, celebrity, or television show, much higher during the salad days of their career. I’m talking about folks like race car driver Mario Andretti, figure skater Peggy Fleming, crooner Barry Manilow, golfer Arnold Palmer, 80s rock star Vince Neil and a host of others.
This got me thinking, since I’ve been on something of a television-related blog post run lately, that all of these celebrities that have decided to come out with a wine line would make a fine line-up for the VH1 television show “The Surreal Life.”
The premise of the show is classic reality television—take five or six diverging personalities and throw them into a house for a while and film the results. The Surreal Life adds the extra element of having faded glory celebrities as their houseguests instead of alpha personality everyday people. Think Peter Brady from the Brady Bunch, Ron Jeremy, porn star, Tammy Faye Baker, or Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies.
It all adds up to something pretty close to watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Usually, The Surreal Life sucks me in on a Saturday morning marathon instead of the aggressive day of yard work or errands I had previously planned.
I did a review of all 6 seasons of the The Surreal Life and came out with his approximation of the casting—which generally seems to fit into archetypes from season to season.
Cast members generally fall into one of the following six categories:
• Sex Appeal: Models, former Playboy Playmates, et al
• Reality TV celebrity: Generally somebody less famous than the faded glory B-list stars in order to create tension about who is more famous, think alumni from Survivor or The Apprentice
• Nostalgia TV celebrity: A much beloved figure from TV days gone by examples like Erik Estrada from C.H.I.P.S and Dave Coulier from the TV show Full House
• Sideshow tent/Curiosity/Person of interest: Tammy Faye Baker, Ron Jeremy, Verne Troyer (a.k.a. Mini-Me), Flavor Flav
• Career Recovery celebrity: Somebody just out of the public consciousness interested in re-establishing themselves like Vanilla Ice, or just simply trying to rub two nickels together based on faded glory
• Musician/Musical Artist: CC Deville, Vince Neil, “Pepa” from 80’s rap group Salt N Pepa, et al
As I reviewed this simple casting categorization, I submit for your approval, my own suggestion for season 7 of The Surreal Life: Wine Edition—all folks that have a wine label with their name associated.
• Sex Appeal: Savanna Samson, porn star with her Sogno Uno label
• Reality TV Star: I’m still waiting for Rob & Amber to come up with something, in the meantime, we’ll go with Lorraine Bracco from the Soprano’s and her Bracco wines
• Nostalgia TV celebrity: Dan Akroyd, late of Saturday Night Live and a bunch of movies that haven’t stood the test of time. He has a line of Canadian wine
• Side show tent/Curiosity/person of interest: Tommy Lasorda, former LA Dodgers manager and general pitchman from the 80s. He has a line of wine due this summer.
• Career Recovery celebrity: Jeff Bridges has partnered on a line of wines to benefit charity
• Muscian/Artist: Vince Neil, a veteran of the first The Surreal Life, gets another reality show chance to promote his Vince Vineyard wines
Folks that didn’t make the cut: Mick Fleetwood, Mario Andretti, Joe Montana, Larry Bird, Jeff Gordon, Barry Manilow.
I think it would be compelling television and since they always do manufactured drama and have some sort of game element on these shows, I recommend a double-blind tasting of everybody’s wines to see how bad they fail at identifying their own vino.
What do you think? Did I miss anybody?
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Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (3) | Print | Email This
April 8 2007
I came of age professionally in the mid-1990’s, the wilderness years for technology, right around the same time that technology certifications became big business—especially big business for technology publishers like my employer at the time who was doing gangbusters business creating test preparation books based on certification curriculum from technology companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, and a member association called CompTia.
Wine and technology have a lot in common in that then, as now, there are as many technology solutions are there are labels of wine.
Technology summarizes itself – loosely – by the number of layers in a technology or network stack. There are seven layers in a network protocol starting out with the physical layer and working its way up to the application layer.
I bring this up because wine, with just three layers, finds itself in a similar situation as technology a decade or so ago.
Essentially, these technology certifications have created an entire category of employment as people seek out the education and the certifications, driving prestige to their resume with an expectation level of compensation and renown for presumed expertise.
But, whereas technology was led in leadership by organization from large technology companies like Microsoft who viewed certification as a means to establish market-defining credibility around a solution, the large wine producers like E& J Gallo and Constellation seem to not recognize, appreciate or seize the same opportunity in wine.
My recent post about food, wine and the Food Network got me thinking about wine certifications and wine competitions—particularly the kind of testing that goes on in most Sommelier-related certifications.
I’ve seen enough Food Network sugar sculpture and cake-making competitions to last me for a while. In fact, I can mindlessly watch/listen to the Food Network for hours as I plink away on my computer EXCEPT for when these infernal cake competitions are on, almost making my ears bleed at the manufactured inanity and drama. This leads to two questions for me:
1) Why aren’t wine certifications more clearly well-defined with a sharper cachet for levels and attainment?
2) Why wouldn’t this make for some interesting and unfolding drama for programming on the Food Network?
The certification question is an interesting one because the certifications in the states are a jumbled mess of overlapping influence and assumption from the U.K.
The Court of Master Sommeliers, the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), the Society of Wine Educators has the Certified Specialist of Wine and Certified Wine Educator, Masters of Wine, something of the granddaddy of wine testing, has their own certification that builds off the WSET, and the American Wine Society has a certification for being a wine judge.
And, of course, I’m sure there are other variations and permutations of certifications that I’m missing.
The Society of Wine Educators has aligned with Gallo to introduce the Gallo Wine Academy, now in its second year, but based on mindshare in the industry, it has to be called, at best, a (very) modest success. The overall notion of the venture, based on an excerpt from the press release seems to be in the spirit of what I think is critically needed:
Committed to furthering wine education not only for its employees and customers but for the industry at large, in early 2004 the E. & J. Gallo Winery approached the Society of Wine Educators, the leading non-profit professional development and certification institution for the wine industry, to forge a strategic alliance to create these e-learning sites.
This new project will allow a significant body of the SWE Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) Exam study guide and syllabus, formerly only available in book form, to become available to a wider audience via the internet.
With wine in the very early stages of changing the landscape of America as an eating and drinking nation, I’m struck that, long-term, now is an exceptional time to treat education as a critically important marketing tool for all three-tiers and for consumers, as well.
You think Gen. Y with their Myspace.com pages and their penchant to enter the wine world as core consumers might not invest a little bit of time into a certification if for nothing else than bragging rights? I’m guessing the answer is a resounding “Yes.”
Now, given that most of these certifications are aimed at Sommeliers and there is frequently an in-person testing for Sommelier service. The Court of Master Sommelier diploma exam tests the following, for example, in front of a live panel:
• Discuss, recommend and serve aperitifs, displaying a sound knowledge of the products and the ability to serve them correctly.
• Select, prepare and position glassware necessary for the service of drinks in the lounge, restaurant, function room or private suite.
• Discuss menu content and wine list, recommending wines to accompany food, displaying a sound knowledge of the products, their vintages and characteristics.
• Present, offer, prepare, (decanting when necessary) and serve wines, demonstrating a high degree of efficiency and proficiency.
• Present, offer, prepare and serve brandies, liqueurs and cigars.
• Handle queries and complaints with skill and diplomacy.
• Discuss the sizes of measures that may be expected from each.
So, as a frequent and regular “armchair quarterback” for the world of wine, I’d like to see somebody step up and assume a leadership position in the industry in the category of certification that creates a wake and defines an as-of-now loosely defined category.
And, all the better if that leads to better Food Network programming by televising some of the participants in the testing process.
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Posted in, Free Run: Field Notes From a Wine Life. Permalink | Comments (2) | Print | Email This
April 6 2007
Oddly, food and wine are intrinsically linked and natural complements, but on the Internet you have two distinct camps and never do the rivers really meet. Sure you have Fork & Bottle and a couple of other good blogs that cover territory in both the edible and quaffing arts, but for the most part people stick to either being a foodie blogger or a wine blogger.
Actually I guess the same is true for mass media like Food Network. They don’t have a single damn show about wine.
It seems like kind of a slight, actually.
Taking a cue from popular media must be the reason there really aren’t *any* blogs period marrying food and wine by, say, a professional like a Sommelier that talks with intelligence, wit and verve about pairings and life on his/her feet working in white table cloth restaurant.
If there are blogs like this that I’m missing, please leave a comment and point them out to me.
I’d really like to see a blog that covers food and wine from the perspective of a Wine Director or a Sommelier—not a snarky, ‘too cool for school’ blog, but one that really tells it like it is from the trenches-- stories of the distributor reps., and the boorish patrons and the annual junkets and the egoist chef that wants to pair Pinot with everything.
There are blogs certainly like this in virtually every micro-niche category:
• When I want to get the between the lines good stuff in sports, I read the blog Deadspin.
• When I want to get celebrity gossip (which isn’t that often, actually) I read Perez Hilton.
• When I want to get the straight skinny on what’s happening in the world of wine distribution, I read Fermentation
• When I want the straight dope on all things food and the restaurant business related I read Michael Ruhlman’s blog.
Michael Ruhlman, surprisingly, has incredible chops having written three books that make up something of a set of must-read books for those in the food know—The Soul of a Chef, The Reach of a Chef and The Making of a Chef.
Anthony Bourdain, he of the Travel Channel and an author in his own right with the must-read Kitchen Confidential, is a guest blogger on the site and pulls no punches. He wrote a hilariously scathing post in February about Food Network personalities that made its way into the internet jetstream and also received a mention on Dr. Vino’s site (found here).
But, the really curious thing is, if you watch the Food Network as I do and in the quantity that I do then you know all of the personalities … personalities that Bourdain doesn’t so much eviscerate (okay he does eviscerate Sandra Lee, but she deserves it), but merely point out foibles in their handling as food personalities.
Somehow missing in action in all of this Bourdain commentary is the one guy that could be the food and wine bridge for Food Network, blogs, and, well, mankind. I’m speaking of Michael Chiarello.
Bourdain completely passes over Michael Chiarello, the guy with the perpetual dinner party of “friends” that act like they have never met before, on his cooking show, Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello.
Chiarello is the one guy with wine roots. Filmed on location in Napa at Trefethen winery, his show is the only show on the Food Network that is remotely close to wine. In fact, Chiarello has his own vineyard and makes a pretty darn good bottle of juice, too—if the reviews are accurate. AND, he is a former Chef at the Napa restaurant Tra Vigne, too.
So, here’s my gauntlet—somebody needs to start writing a wine and food blog with some insider authority and a professional bent, or Anthony Bourdain needs to start calling out all of the Food Network chefs so the one guy that has a link to the wine industry can get his proper due (or even skewering). Or, Michael Chiarello is going to have sidestep all of this nonsense and simply start his own blog with his own initiative and write about the ins and outs of food and wine, his restaurant experience and the challenges in running a wine lifestyle business.
No less than an information hungry online public demands it.
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April 4 2007
Remember when you were a kid, awaking mid-morning, eating your cereal, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and your Dad would say something to the effect of, “I’ve been up since five, read three chapters of a book, jogged a few miles, cleaned up the garage and your Mother and I just came back from a walk.” You would look at him squinty eyed with a mixture of mock horror and admiration.
I think the wine industry is in a similar position with the green revolution that is occurring. The industry is saying to the rest of the world, “Welcome. Thanks for coming around. Pull up a chair and let’s talk or a while. I’ve been up a while and have accomplished quite a bit already.”
An embittered cynic might take a look at the absolute green revolution gripping America and stare down their nose at the Prius driving carbon neutral folks with disdain, but clearly some large scale trends are taking shape that point to not only a much greater civic responsibility in taking care of our environment, but also significant support from our business community across industries.
The wine industry, in particular, should be proud for being a beacon of responsible citizenry.
I saw a press release and an article this week that reinforced this sustainable notion—a press release from Medlock Ames and a California Farm Bureau Federation article.
Seemingly disparate ideas, but all underneath a socially-conscious umbrella, Medlock Ames (blog transparency alert: Medlock Ames is a customer of my employer) has moved their entire operation to 100% solar power and a really cool concept is coming from an organic composting company—they collect food waste, some 330 tons of it a day, and turn it into compost.
Medlock Ames is an Estate super-premium producer in Sonoma County who, in addition to making superb wines, is something of a case study for a high-end, boutique winery doing their thing with contemporary zeal, but also with a sensibility for making wine with a minimal impact to their immediate surroundings and the environment.
Operating on something of a three pillar plan between the vineyard—winery—and operations to become a completely sustaining business, Medlock Ames has incorporated green practices into all aspects of their business:
1) In the vineyard they are an organic producer inspired by biodynamic methodologies
2) In the winery they employ green practices wherever possible including gravity flow to reduce energy usage while mitigating too much intervention and handling of the grapes and wine. They also frequently use wild yeasts
3) They are energy efficient and use 100% clean, renewable energy. Their solar energy produces energy equivalent to the use of 15 acres of a mature forest and prevents 1,691, 374 lbs of carbon dioxide from being used. They also use electric vehicles and biodiesel wherever possible.
Numerous wineries engage in natural winemaking, but you have to give a lot of credit to Medlock for the foresight and desire to incorporate that green mentality throughout the business, including the installation of solar panels in the vineyard where Ames Morison notes, “Owls and Hawks are often seen perching on our solar panels.”
No word on what Medlock uses to fertilize in the vineyard, but Jepson Prairie Organics works with sister companies to collect Bay Area food waste and grass clippings and they turn it into organically approved compost.
What a cool concept. According to the article published today by the California Farm Bureau (found here):
Finicky eaters who walk away from full plates at San Francisco Bay Area restaurants and dinner tables can actually be helping the environment. More than 2,000 restaurants in San Francisco and Oakland, as well as thousands of city homes, provide food scraps for an innovative commercial composting program that Northern California farmers use to grow crops.
From the Jepson web site:
These source materials create a very a diverse feedstock that includes everything from crab shells and cantaloupe skins to steak bones and half eaten sandwiches. The result is especially rich compost, perfect for reconditioning soils after harvest.
Compost made from the food scraps of San Francisco restaurants is a beautiful sight in the eyes of vineyard managers. “We are trying to enhance the soil microbial growth and by adding compost we can achieve that,” says Hale. “We can also increase the availability of nutrients in the soil for the uptake of the plant. We can do this by adding this very rich compost. Finally, we like to use organic material to increase the soil tithe and porosity.”
It’s an interesting time in the wine industry, and though the wine business is often slagged for being a step or three behind in progressiveness, it’s nice to see and recognize not only wineries and companies serving the industry that are well ahead of the curve, but also small businesses that are also proactively trying to say, “Hey, we’ve been here a while, pull up a chair and let me tell you a story.” Medlock and Jepsen are certainly two good stories to start. Let’s hope other industries take a page from their book. Recycling in all forms, ideas and otherwise, is a good thing.
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April 3 2007
I’ve been doing some work recently that got me thinking about how much a wine’s price is determined by the actual quality of the wine in the bottle and how much by the demand created through marketing. Aside from a few very rare exceptions, wine needs to be marketed to be sold. This is normally done through retail stores, the winery tasting room, to wine clubs and increasingly through online wine merchants. All these add to the costs a winery has to pay in order to get their wines to the customer but they are not the main cost driver; the grapes are.
If you are Fred Franzia making his famous “Two-buck Chuck” you are paying about $100 a ton for your over-cropped Central Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The yield per ton is probably something like 7 tons per acre which doesn’t produce the most concentrated fruit. That ton of fruit will make around 60 cases or 720 standard bottles so Fred’s got around 14 cents per bottle in fruit costs. Now you can start to see how he can make money selling it for $1.99 at Trader Joe’s. Contrast that with the premium producer in Napa Valley who spends $6,000 a ton on fruit and up. There the yield is between 3 and 4 tons per acre that will produce a more concentrated, complex wine. Assuming the same 60 cases are made, the Napa Valley producer has around $8.30 in fruit costs. Not too bad if the wine will be selling for $50 or $60 a bottle but still 60 times more costly than Mr.Franzia’s wine. But this post is not intended to be a forensic dissection of the wine cost structure, for that, visit my friend Vini.
So getting back to the wine in the bottle, the basic difference is in the quality of the fruit and cellar treatment (i.e. new oak barrels vs. chips, aging time, etc.). For producers making the finest wines they tend to spend a lot more on these items but in the final analysis the most extravagant producer might have something like $30 of cost in each bottle produced. Since distributors buy at an average of 40% off retail, this wine would sell for a minimum of $57 a bottle assuming a 10% winery profit. But what if this wine is priced at $150 or $500 a bottle? Well, the profit margin is certainly higher but there are probably higher marketing costs, as well.
As I learned last week, there seems to be a point where price and quality diverge. The reputation of a winery, bolstered by glossy treatment in the wine magazines and 95+ Parker scores also help to push the demand, and price, for these wines. But are they the best example of a certain wine region or variety? Well that, my friends, is in the eye, and palate, of the beholder. You might think Screaming Eagle is the zenith of Napa Cabernet while I prefer what Ladera is doing for a lot less. Preferences aside, there are many great quality wines from all over the world that compete for our hard earned wine dollar. What really separates them is not the quality of what’s in the bottle but the demand that is created for those bottles. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of marketing… at least in my book.
Cheers,
--
Tim Elliott
Winecast
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